The Reparations Agreement between Israel and the Federal Republic of Germany was signed on September 10, 1952, and entered in force on March 27, 1953. According to the Agreement, West Germany was to pay Israel for the costs of "resettling so great a number of uprooted and destitute Jewish refugees" after the war, and to compensate individual Jews, via the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, for losses in Jewish livelihood and property resulting from Nazi persecution.
Wiedergutmachung refers to the reparations that the German government agreed to pay in 1953 to the direct survivors of the Holocaust, and to those who were made to work at forced labour camps or who otherwise became victims of the Nazis. The sum would amount, through the years, to over 100 billion Deutsche Mark. Historian Tony Judt writes about Wiedergutmachung:
In making this agreement Konrad Adenauer ran some domestic political risk: in December 1951, just 5 percent of West Germans surveyed admitted feeling ‘guilty’ towards Jews. A further 29 percent acknowledged that Germany owed some restitution to the Jewish people. The rest were divided between those who thought that only people ‘who really committed something’ were responsible and should pay, and those who thought ‘that the Jews themselves were partly responsible for what happened to them during the Third Reich.’ When the restitution agreement was debated in the Bundestag on March 18th 1953, the Communists voted against, the Free Democrats abstained and both the Christian Social Union and Adenauer’s own CDU were divided, with many voting against any Wiedergutmachung (reparations).
Aryanization was the Nazi term for the seizure of property from Jews and its transfer to non-Jews, and the forced expulsion of Jews from economic life in Nazi Germany, Axis-aligned states, and their occupied territories. It entailed the transfer of Jewish property into "Aryan" or non-Jewish hands.
Walter Vielhauer was a communist and anti-fascist of Heilbronn who was held captive by Nazi Germany before and during World War II.
The National Fund of the Republic of Austria for Victims of National Socialism, German: Nationalfonds der Republik Österreich für Opfer des Nationalsozialismus, is a fund created by the Republic of Austria to seek to apply restitution for property confiscated by the Nazis during World War II. The fund was established in 1995.
Aktion Arbeitsscheu Reich was a punitive campaign in Nazi Germany targeting individuals deemed as "work-shy" or "asocial." In April and June 1938, as part of the "Arbeitsscheu Reich"(work-shy Reich), more than 10,000 men were arrested as so-called "black triangle anti-social elements" and sent to concentration camps. During the so-called June-action, about 2,500 Jews who had received previous convictions for varied reasons were also targeted.
The Reich Flight Tax was a German capital control law implemented in 1931 to stem capital flight from the German Reich. After seizing power, the Nazis used the law to prevent emigrants from moving money out of the country.
Israel Alter was an Austrian-Hungarian Jewish cantor and last chief cantor in Hanover, Germany. The well traveled composer was regarded as "the one Chasanim, the cantor of the cantors".
Margarethe Kahn was a German mathematician and Holocaust victim. She was among the first women to obtain a doctorate in Germany. Her doctoral work was on the topology of algebraic curves.
Heinz Röthke was a German SS-Obersturmführer of Nazi Germany and a convicted war criminal. Röthke was the Gestapo Jewish expert in Paris, and, as such, was in overall charge of the concentration camp in Occupied France as well as of the deportation of Jews, between 1940 and 1944, during the Holocaust.
Lastenausgleich was the post-World War II program and law to recompense Germans for damages incurred during the war.
Hermann Horner was an Austrian-Hungarian operatic bass-baritone. He performed on numerous stages in Germany and Czechoslovakia and was a guest at the Bayreuth Festival. He was murdered by the Nazis.
The Judenvermögensabgabe was an arbitrary special tax imposed on German Jews under the Nazi dictatorship. The tax was only a part of a larger series of actions taken by the Nazis to systematically plunder Jewish assets.
Julius Freund was a German entrepreneur and art collector persecuted by the Nazis because he was Jewish.
Curt Glaser was a German Jewish art historian, art critic and collector who was persecuted by the Nazis.
Walter Westfeld or Westfield was a German Jewish art collector and art dealer whose collection was plundered by Nazis. Westfield was murdered in the Holocaust.
Richard Neumann was an Austrian industrialist and art collector persecuted by Nazis because he was Jewish.
Abraham Adelsberger was a German toy factory owner, councilor of commerce and art collector.
The Gedenkbuch – Opfer der Verfolgung der Juden unter der nationalsozialistischen Gewaltherrschaft 1933–1945 is a memorial book published by the German Federal Archives, listing persons murdered during the Holocaust as part of the Nazis' so-called "Final Solution". It is limited to people, regardless of nationality, who voluntarily lived within the borders of the German Reich as of December 31, 1937. Since 2007, it has been available online. As of February 2020, it contained 176,475 names. Alongside the Arolsen Archives and Yad Vashem's central database, it is considered an important resource for Holocaust research. Since its publication, many cities and states have published their own memorial books, complementing and expanding on the Gedenkbuch.
